The Manual of Bean Curd Boxing: Tai Chi and the Noble Art of Leaving Things Undone: The Tai Chi Trilogy, #2

By Paul Read

"All good arguments that are worth making are probably best contradicted at some later point".

The Manual of Bean Curd Boxing is a curious book, for unlike most writings on mindfulness, Tai Chi or oriental philosopy, this humble manual shows you how to move beyond the words on the page.

So many practices promise happiness, security, health, wisdom or enlightenment, but so few deliver. Yet, when you fuse together an ancient eastern practice with a thoroughly 21st century take - you create something beautifully intriguing and inspiringly new that encompasses so many of these qualities: Bean Curd Boxing.

Combining the simplicity of Tai Chi, the soft wisdom of the ancient sages and a tender light-hearted approach to learning, the Manual of Bean Curd Boxing shows you: 

* How to absorb the basics of these arts into your daily activities with no sweat and no stress
* How to remain tranquil and calm under the stress of daily encounters 
* How to perfect the ancient art of 'doing without doing' in order to softly Get Things Done 
* How to become a slow ninja amongst a planet of speed freaks 

"Relax, and let the 10.000 Things come together and suddenly ordinary moments become extraordinary, shapes emerge from the shadows of dust and a procession of tigers and tortoises, flamingos and ninjas all appear to come to our aid."

In a world of Information Overload, the Manual of Bean Curd Boxing offers an alternative source of wisdom: practical and original exercises for re-learning good posture, good breathing habits and building powerful new energy boosting habits.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Craving Distraction Ltd
• Release date: Nov 23, 2010
• ISBN: 9781386046677

Paul Read

Born restless in the very centre of London, England, Paul Read now fidgets his way back and forth between the Uk and Spain in search of good coffee, good conversation and fresh vegetables. In the absence of finding any of these, he writes, schemes and plans for global domination but generally settles for a series of podcasts, books, and online teaching courses: All freshly brewed and 100% guru-free.

Book preview

Chapter 1: More or Less

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The underlying message of the digital age is that we can achieve more by doing less. However, this mantra for the technologically-driven 21st century rarely reaches further than the sales pitch of new-age entrepreneurs and gurus, who feed us an endless supply of information, but a marked absence of wisdom. One explanation is that the ¨Less is More¨ philosophy has become detached from its roots within the ancient philosophy of Taoism and the significantly low-tech practice of Tai Chi Chuan.

Our western minds find difficulty in understanding the language of these arts, unaccustomed as we are to the slow pace of its exercises and the brevity of its wisdom. To truly understand the concept of Doing Less, a new language is required that not only can teach us how to Get Things Done, but to go that one step further and embrace the noble art of Leaving Things Undone: To get out of our own way so that life can pursue its natural course.

Bean Curd Boxing speaks this new language, a language that Embraces Tigers, that Merges With Dust, that Fries Small Fish and laughs out loud at the Earl Of Greystokes Chest. As with all languages, however, words alone are never enough to stimulate real change, so the Manual of Bean Curd Boxing provides exercises that aid in adopting not just the philosophy, but the practice of real change.

The Manual

Chapters 1 to 9 of The Manual of Bean Curd Boxing investigate the ideas that traditionally drive our actions: Our search for happiness, balance, simplicity and health. It is here that we must begin our journey by looking closely at the knots we have tied ourselves into; the bad posture that holds back the power of our breath, and the behaviour and patterns of our most recurrent thoughts.

Chapters 10 and 11 then take these same ideas out onto the street and shows how we can best integrate these soft, yet firm exercises into our daily workflow so that our levels of energy increase, our constitution strengthens, and our pace of life adjusts to a healthier rhythm.

The last few chapters provide a contextual history of the arts that make up Bean Curd Boxing - on the basis that the best advice on how to go forward is often to be found by looking back.

Benefits Of Practice

Although this manual cannot promise you enlightenment, you will find plenty of advice on how to keep moving, for in movement there is life. Such movement is found in the pattern of your breath, the pace of your stride and the softness of your stare. It is found in the flow of air and water, the paths of the planets and even in the digital exchange of information. It is found in the gentleness of moving forward whilst looking back, and in the process of slowing down in order to arrive on time.

And when it is time to Get Things Done and others around you are bustling with action, you will learn to go and make some tea instead. For it is in the pursuit of unrelated activities that we most often find a solution to our most pressing problems.

If all of this appears contradictory, then that is because Bean Curd Boxers revel in the play of opposites. Throughout the book you will be encouraged to approach this Noble Art with a sense of play rather than study, because playing with ideas and exercises encourages you to try before judging, and this is an important stage in the process of letting things go.

With play in mind, you will note that each chapter ends with a Question and Answer session. This is to show that there are no fixed ideas in Bean Curd Boxing, everything is in flux and all good arguments that are worth making are probably best contradicted at some later point.

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QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS: Soft Thinking, Meditation and Shoelaces

Q: What exactly is Bean Curd Boxing?

A: It is the re-claiming of soft posture, soft breathing and soft thinking in order to give us back more energy, more rest and yet still achieve all that needs doing.

Q: Soft thinking? Is that why it is called Bean Curd?

A: Many people mistakenly believe that there is but one sort of Bean Curd. But Bean Curd comes in many shapes and forms: Silken Bean Curd has the consistency of custard and is therefore far too soft for what we need. Stinky meanwhile, is just, well too stinky and the 1000 Layered, despite its Taoist sounding name, is just a frozen variety and as such is far too cold for what we have planned. Instead, as Bean Curd Boxers we will be concentrating on the Firm Variety, for when pressed it yields and then pushes back, demonstrating an adaptability essential in a world that changes so quickly and so often. Bean Curd Boxing (the 'Firm Variety') draws on the soft principles of Tai Chi Chuan and applies them to a world that is increasingly digitalised, fractured and segregated; Bean Curd Boxing shows us the path to find balance.

Q: Do you have to practise Taoism, Meditation or Tai Chi Chuan to learn Bean Curd Boxing?

A: Certainly not. Neither do you need to chant, buy any beads or map any Ley Lines. This manual is an excellent starting point for any of the above practices, but it is more than just a manual. The aim of this book is to try and bring the ideas alive, to go beyond the definition of words, and beyond the arguments about principle. The aim is, very simply, to provide us with the basic tools to turn life upside down and inside out, leaving you forever changed, and forever open to change.

Q: What Does the Art of Leaving things Undone say about Shoelaces?

A: It is often said that you can't learn something new without first letting go of something old. It's the same with your shoelaces. When your shoelaces are badly knotted, do you carry on tying them into more knots or do you stop for a moment and say: hey, why don't I try undoing them first?

Chapter 2: The Untying of Shoelaces

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At the core of Bean Curd Boxing is Tai Chi: a relatively old discipline that offers us a different language for interpreting this manic world in which we live, and for exploring alternatives that complement rather than confront these permanent cycles of change. The language of Tai Chi is not based on words, but rather on movement and silence - finding alignment and patterns of energy that follow us as we breathe and move through this world of transience and insubstantially. It has been said that we have two ears and one mouth, and that we should learn to use them proportionately. So in Tai Chi we communicate less with the mouth and more with movement, breath and touch - actions that employ all our listening senses, so that we can read a situation from the slightest contact with another human being, whether it be an accidental brush against someone in a crowded bar or a sensual caress in a candle-lit bedroom. By observing how someone responds, how someone breathes or how he or she shifts their body weight in response to our touch we can learn this new language of consciousness.

To learn something new as a Bean Curd Boxer, however, it is always advisable to discard something first. Thus the first chapter of this manual attempts to do just that by showing us how to let go - or untie the knot - of those things that stand in our path: 

Unhappiness

Imbalance

Complexity

Ill-health.

Untying The Knot: Unhappiness

The economic and political crisis that spread during the early part of the 21st Century provoked a global outcry, not just to reform the system but to replace it with something more meaningful. At last people everywhere were asking if life could promise more than just servitude, endless consumption and the dissatisfaction that always accompanies this lifestyle. But if satisfaction is not to be found in the activity that consumes most of our conscious life on this planet, then where can it be found? Perhaps it could be purchased on eBay? Or ordered from an Amazon wish-list?

Alas, for most of us, our working lives leave us with a sense of emptiness and a deep underlying worry that the real meaning of life has somehow strolled past our front door and forgot to stop by. For some, this realisation comes as the first exciting job promotion quickly leaves us as unsatisfied as before. For others it is when the kids have left home or when, after so many years of yearning, retirement finally arrives and there is an unease and discomfort with such an abundance of space in our lives.

In search of meaning, we stumble out beyond the front door only to tumble from one global recession to another, one health epidemic to another, or yet one more violent conflict over dwindling global resources. As consumers, we are encouraged to ameliorate such conditions by developing a greater hunger to snack or smoke - but this lasts only for so long. At some point we have to sit down to eat a proper meal - a meal that will satisfy our soul's hunger for true expression and our our stomachs' appetite for true tastes in the foods we buy. Our minds crave something too, a deep wish for honesty to return to our lives in which the verbal pitches made by both politicians and market economists express a common good, rather than a personal preference.

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